Contrary to what the alarmists are saying, the world’s breadbaskets aren’t going to turn into barren Mad Max hellscapes in the next decade.
In fact, if warming occurs, the US and Canada stand to net gain arable land and have increased growing seasons.
Of course the counter to that will always be “… but we’re going to have like SO much climate chaos!” which has become the perfect scary, vague and ultimately unprovable argument.
It's so weird to see this argument retreat to rhetoric that basically reduces to "What's your problem? It's not like the planet will become a lifeless wasteland. Something is going to survive!"
The median scenario we're looking at now (polar ice melting, large scale extinctions, universal ecosystem disruption, all over a few-hundred-year scale) is exactly the kind of "doomsday scenario" that all you people spent the past three decades denying was possible.
People have said that frequently for all kinds of things, but in practice civilization is just really shockingly resilient.
Look at say Ukraine it was literally invaded with a war going on last year plus mass migration etc, but it also exported crops last year and are likely to do the same in 2023. Yes they are down significantly from 2021, but it’s not even close to zero.
It’s easy to get into this mindset that everything must work perfectly or the world falls apart but people adapt fairly quickly and in the end global warming is slow. It’s a death of a thousand cuts, but each of them gives a great deal of time to react. Cities aren’t going to flood on day X of year Y, it’s going to take decades of slightly worse storm surges etc. Crops wouldn’t suddenly fail because this year is 0.02C warmer than last the yield will mostly just slowly decline until alternative crops and methods are used etc etc.
Yes, local crop yields vary significantly year to year based on weather but that’s been the case since agriculture was a thing. The difference is we have much better transportation infrastructure and more ability to make substitutions.
You might want to study your farming books again before you write your next condescending rant? It will be a while before permafrost becomes farmland but luckily there is a huge - and I mean enormous - area which has not seen permafrost for thousands of years but simply is too cold for many crops to be grown profitably. If the planet really ends up those 1.5°C to 2.5°C warmer than it is now (but cooler than it has been) growth zones move up and farming those crops becomes profitable where it currently isn't. This is something you know but for some reason decide to ignore only to indulge in apocalyptic fantasies. Why is that? Why do you - and the many with you who show similar behaviour - choose this path of rapture? If you think this makes people who do not follow your beliefs take them more seriously realise that it achieves exactly the opposite: the more outlandish the proposed scenarios of doom, the less likely non-believers are to fall in line.
That's a pretty pessimistic view, with no basis in reality.
Fact is, the world has more people than ever, yet is richer than ever, there's less poverty and hunger than ever, the world is more peaceful than ever, and there's certainly no signs of collapse and certainly not in 1 decade smh...
If you truly believe that we're a decade away from collapse, why aren't you stockpiling food and weapons in a bunker? Because there's no sign of political will from the major CO2 emitters to curb emissions so your worst case scenario is definitely happening, right? People say these things, yet I don't see any of the climate alarmists actually doing things to indicate that they're alarmed...
What crisis? Who is dying from mild warming? The crisis that has been predicted every year since 1990 has not materialized. We have rather ordinary, rather boring climate conditions right now. No, really. Crop yields are near all time highs (although with man-made fertilizer shortages due to war, may take a hit this year) [1]. The earth is greening as a result of CO2 fertilization [2]. Deaths from natural disasters are near all time lows [3]. Sea level rise is marginal (1.5-3 mm per year) and not by any means catastrophic [4]. The planet will be fine in 2030 just like it is fine today. Please, go visit our national parks if you're in the U.S. Go hike Yellowstone. Go to Glacier National Park, which they predicted would melt by 2020 (didn't happen). Go look at the wildlife yourself. They are thriving. The polar bear population has more than six-tupled since the 1950s [5]. There is no, suddenly in 2030 everything is going to collapse. Earth has been much, much warmer, much more CO2 dense, and life was thriving. Warmth is almost universally good for life. It is icy and cold and dry conditions that life struggles to survive in. Yes, I know some ecosystems are under intense pressure as a result of manmade activity. But warmth isn't it. The majority of the biodiversity falls within the tropics and drops off as you enter temperate zones and then again as you enter the arctic zones. But meanwhile, it's not as if those tropic zones are expanding rapidly. They're not going to be any different in 2030 than in 2022.
The 2030 narrative is designed to terrify you. It is a narrative. It is not science. It's a deranged hypothesis focused on manipulating human psychology. And clearly, it's highly effective as an exercise in thought control.
We are not scared because of “the news” we are scared because of the graphs of temperature over time. Look at the plot. Find the +1.5C on the y axis. Now find where the plot crosses that on the x axis.
We have like 15 years. Perhaps you dont think +1.5C does anything to farming?
but it's not really an argument about the future either.
The facts are the facts and they are:
We are better than ever to deal with unpredictable weather patterns and can produce food places that used to be impossible.
We are better at living places that used to be impossible.
We are better at producing food than ever, we are better at using resources than ever, we are better at dealing with floods than ever, with drought than ever, with extreme weather than ever and I could go on.
You are claiming that this will change based on speculation and single points of reference, not science and thus we can then have a speculative debate if you'd like not a scientific one.
I haven't seen any evidence that would point to us not being able to deal with the climate in the future better than we are today.
So what's your point? What's your suggestion? What is it you want me/us to do we aren't already doing that wouldn't be worse than what we are already doing?
This story does suggest the logical response to the climate change Chicken Littles who say we will no longer be able to grow crops. Sure we can, just different crops.
Then again, apocalyptic belief systems generally have little to do with either reasoning or positivity.
edit: Before you flame me, I fully believe in climate change - I'm not denying anything here. I'm just saying humans can and will adapt.
The only sure thing is that most of these doom prediction happen to be false.
People writing this kinda things seem to think we can afford reducing the growth society. The sad reality is that if we don't all grow we will suffer way more than what climate change will bring.
Grow up, stop living like peter pan and work to find proper solution instead of complaining.
Oh boy, alarmism at its finest. Crop yields are up anywhere from 50-100%. Livestock numbers are stable. Food supply is more than secure. Sea level rise, is fairly minimal at 3mm a year. Certainly not cause for doom and gloom. Certainly manageable. Basic needs of humanity are: food, water, and shelter. None of which is in danger or even remotely close to danger levels. The idea that the human race is any remote kind of danger is bogus.
> As the article says, climate change won't destroy human civilization.
It's likely climate change itself won't destroy human civilization. Food shortages, massive wildfires (which climate change contribute to), rising sea levels, and changing weather patterns will have huge and unpredictable effects on global politics. What the downstream effects of those changes will be is extremely hard to predict, but the chances of a nightmare outcome are far greater than the chances civilization will remain largely unchanged over the next 20-30 years.
The good news is the most likely scenario is things will just keep getting shittier slowly and we'll avoid any sort of apocalypse. We'll just leave our grandkids a super-shitty world. Yay Us!
So there will be no mass starvation long term, after this super climate change year.
But I see no reason in the USA and Europe if they know what will happen with climate in a year, all the big farms won't adapt within that year.
To put all that change into a year will hammer the poor, but they will adapt within years and I'd see no reason the richer countries couldn't prop them up during the change over.
It's a tough hypothetical. The Netherlands probably couldn't do 100 years of climate change in a year for their dykes... I'm not sure. Maybe they could.
The coronavirus is also a big deal, you'll feel it for decades. What worries about it, is lost time. We are destroying time doing nothing during C19. Climate change 100 years -> 1 year, you'd lost a lot of stuff, but things would plod along.
Climate changes are way exaggerated. Almost all official predictions by IPCC etc, which aren’t addicted to clickbait, say that over the next few decades we will lose some GDP growth due to climate change. But world GDP will still grow. There won’t be starvation, or famine, etc.
This is not the world ending apocalyptic scenario that’s thrown around in the media.
Perhaps a few countries will become uninhabitable, but I find that unlikely too. The current cases of countries that because uninhabitable dealt with the issues (eg Netherlands) and are still thriving.
It might be two degrees warmer this century. Life will go on just fine. Possibly better in some ways and places. No problem, relatively speaking, compared to the hazards our ancestors face.
If it warms 5C, we might have a real problem on our hands. I don’t think we can predict that, and I don’t think it will happen over 100-200 year timescales.
Many people seem to think there will be mass die offs, the ocean will become unsurvivable acidic, and crops won’t grow. I don’t think any of that will happen anytime soon. I think there is a very strong “doom” instinct in humans to think this is the last generation, the end of times. This is just the latest manifestation.
> Warming the planet by a few degrees centigrade should be thought of as massively increasing energy into the weather system.
But it doesn't, not "massively". "Warming" here means increasing air temperatures, but the atmosphere is tiny considered as a heat sink.
> This will necessitate a period of dramatic “turbulence” (wild local swings) while a new equilibrium is established. This will potentially cause massive disruption in the world order.
Alarmists might claim this, but there isn't any evidence for it. A far more likely source of disruption in the world order is alarmist claims themselves.
> making areas like Siberia more habitable in terms of temperature isn’t exactly helpful if it doesn’t have soil conducive to growing food or for enough infrastructure to house large numbers of people.
People already manage to grow things in Siberia (and in some colder parts of Canada) despite the temperature. That will only improve as the region warms.
As for infrastructure, that's what adaptation is for: as more people want to move there, you build the infrastructure. Just like we do now in other areas that people want to move to. This has been going on for as long as humans have moved around the planet.
> What may not continue is how we currently live.
"How we currently live" has already changed massively in the past century or two. Of course it will continue to change, and of course people should be aware of that and should be planning accordingly. But there is no need for alarmism about it.
In fact, if warming occurs, the US and Canada stand to net gain arable land and have increased growing seasons.
Of course the counter to that will always be “… but we’re going to have like SO much climate chaos!” which has become the perfect scary, vague and ultimately unprovable argument.
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